The Little Mermaid (2023)

Director: Rob Marshall

Cast: Halle Bailey, Jonah Hauer-King, Daveed Diggs, Awkwafina

Have I seen it Before: So, here’s the thing. I saw this in the theater. Twice. Why? Perfectly reasonable question, and we’ll get to that in a minute.

Did I Like It: It may not matter if I like it or not. By and large, I do. Bailey has the perfect combination of charisma and curiosity to effectively sell herself as the youngest princess of the ocean. If you have a problem with her, I’ll have to leave you to quietly contemplate your reasons. I might be urged to say that the amount of computer animation needed to make the ocean come alive and resemble a 35-year-old cartoon doesn’t really make this all that different from the original. The “live-action remake” moniker for some of these Disney films can only go so far, right?

Given that I’ve seen it twice, I have found myself lazily singing or humming several of the film’s songs. I can tell you right now that every one of those songs were also found in the original. Even as I write this, I find the rhythm of my typing occasionally syncs up with “Under the Sea.” If you put a gun to my head, I wouldn’t be able to remember any of the new songs. They aren’t offensive; they merely blend. That is, aside for “Scuttlebutt.” A rap duet with Sebastian (Diggs) and Scuttle (Awkwafina) which seems specifically designed to annoy. Such a total tonal misstep, I’ve been reasonably sure that the guy who directed Cats (2019) had somehow once again been let loose on a big-budget film. I was visibly shocked to learn Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote the new songs and am now forced to believe his intent was to annoy with “Scuttlebutt.”

Lora, the avowed Little Mermaid fan in our house indicated she preferred this film to the original, owing in no small part to the fact that Ariel’s agency—noticeably missing from the animated version—is given narrative weight, with King Triton (Javier Bardem, looking a bit like he might have shot all of his scenes before being properly caffeinated for the day) eventually saying, “You shouldn’t have had to lose your voice to be heard.” It’s a nice thought, and hard to dismiss.

But, yes: How did I come to see this twice? My niece, “still four,” as she would describe herself, wanted to go see it, and as Uncle Weird Little Movie Guy™, I was more than willing to sit through it again to be part of a relative’s first trip to the theater. Now, we can all wrap ourselves in our cynicism about Disney’s crass money grab in repackaging things we’ve already seen. We can look dourly upon the occasionally dodgy CGI (Sebastian’s eyes are fascinating, but often unsettling), and decide that the whole thing looks like the lighting department were out getting Bardem’s coffee. We live in cynical times, especially when it comes to our art. I get that, but when Niece saw the tableau of Ariel’s cave of treasures, she exclaimed “Wow!” with a complete lack of artifice. You can’t argue with that kind of a review.

By the same token, when she came in with the one-two punch in the films last half an hour—after our haul of snacks had run dry—with first a question (“When will this movie be over?”) and then finally a proclamation (“I have been sitting in this chair for so long!”), you can’t argue with that review, either. There was no reason to expand this one from the trim 83 minutes of the original two 135 minutes here. Your audience has spoken, Disney. The audience is here for these live action remakes, but expanding them beyond any normal snack arrangement, or the reasonable attention span of a 4-year-old, you’ve got problems.

Maybe if you had cut out “Scuttlebutt…”

The Little Mermaid (1989)

Director: John Muskier, Ron Clements

Cast: Jodi Bneson, Christopher Daniel Barnes, Pat Carroll, Kenneth Mars

Have I Seen it Before: I’m having a hard time imagining anyone who hasn’t seen the film, doubly so for anyone who came of age in the 90s, and triply so if they had a younger sister.

Did I Like It: What’s not to like? The film may not have anything terribly profound to say about our world or the world in which it was released—or, at least, we hope it doesn’t, but I’ll get to that in a bit—but are there any films, animated or otherwise, where nearly every single shot is iconic? Even the Pixar films can’t quite accomplish that feat. Besides, any film that has René Auberjonois leaning that hard into the French of it all has to be an all-timer. Come to think of it, anything with René Auberjonois in it is good*. I don’t make the rules, I merely enforce them with great glee.

Sure, there’s an undercurrent of misogyny fueling the story. That could be an easy thing to point to as something “not to like.” But I ask, if for no other reason than I am genuinely not sure what the correct answer is, but is Ariel really such a defeat for female agency in film? She is prepared to give up quite a lot to—ultimately—chase a boy. But there never seems to be a moment where she wants something else that is somehow denied to her. Does she not have—for good or for ill—quite a bit of agency as the story progresses? If her ambitions are not the viewer’s ambitions, does that automatically introduce distance between the film and its audience?

Then again, she’s only 16, so King Triton offering up his youngest daughters to forge a detente—if not quite alliance—with humanity. There’s no way that’s not gross, right?

*How a movie like Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991) can get away with cutting him out of the film and still be good is beyond me… Probably why, gun to my head, I enjoy the home video cut of that film the most of all possible cuts.

Hercules (1997)

Director: Ron Clements, Jon Musker

Cast: Tate Donovan, Danny DeVito, James Woods, Susan Egan

Have I Seen It Before?: Never. After right about The Lion King (1994), the degree of my familiarity with Disney feature animation becomes spotty at best. Why now? I accidentally scratched my wife’s car, and watching this on Disney+ is my penance.

Did I like it?: And it wasn’t that much of a penance at all. Even in their relative nadir, Walt Disney Feature Animation would never let something out of the lab that was not designed within an inch of its life to entertain as many people as possible. So what’s not to like about the movie? I mean, I think there isn’t a warm-blooded creature still living who could use less James Woods in their lives, but how about those muses? Danny DeVito is always terrific, and you can’t help but smile when you hear Michael Bolton crooning over the end credits (although that might be a bit of historically revisionist criticism, I’ll admit).

There’s an element of Disney animated films that never work too well for me. The cell animation in this film is pretty great, and each character is designed as if they are the relief art on a Greek vase. Cell animation is great. I wish they continued to make more movies like this. But this is an interesting post-Toy Story (1995) era where the Mouse House (and to be fair, any other feature animation of the era) felt the need to fuse computer generated images with their cell-animated characters. It most often happens in action sequences, and it never looks quite right. I am not sure if it was a cost-saving measure, or if there was a sensibility that merging these two styles would be the cutting edge of artistry, but twenty-plus years later, the seams will always show.

Aladdin (2019)

Director: Guy Ritchie

Cast: Will Smith, Mena Massourd, Naomi Scott, Marwan Kenzari

Have I Seen it Before: I mean, the typical joke about the lack of originality in Hollywood would be sort of low-hanging fruit in this particular case.

Did I Like It: I mean, sure?

From a pure study of screenwriting, it is interesting to see how the screenplay for the original Aladdin (1992) was disassembled and then put back together into… this. Large portions of the beginning of the original film are truncated to start the main meat of the story much faster, and presumably to allow space for the injected subplot. It actually works for the most part, and allows the film to reach (and perhaps intermittently succeed) to be a product of its time far more than the original did.

But then, if the goal of a Disney movie is to be truly timeless, why try to make a film a reflection of its time? Empowering Jasmine (Scott) is welcome and overdue but dwelling on the politically precarious times in Agrabah feels less magical, to put it mildly. I’ve got no problem with those moments, really, but in twenty years is it going to age very well? Let’s assume we’ll all be here in twenty years, naturally… On that front, the awkwardly injected elements of the film are sort of hopeful, because it allows me to imagine a world in which they wouldn’t work as well.

New music written for this version of the film is fine, but it does seem akin to the point in the concert where you let the rock star play through stuff on the new album. The new music isn’t bad, and you might even grow to like it as time goes on, but it isn’t what you came for.

And then there’s Will Smith. I’m tempted to give the studio and filmmakers a pass on his casting. There really isn’t a current equivalent to the frenetic energy Robin Williams brought to the role. If they absolutely insisted on remaking the movie—and it appears that they did—they were stuck on the central piece of casting for the movie. Picking Smith offers the viewer a fundamentally different energy. Williams was a pinball, jumping back and forth improbably so much that they were able to create a new character out of some of his improvisations. Will Smith is occasionally funny, but his strength lies much more in the pure charisma. Had they not fed Smith a lot of the same off-the-wall lines that Williams had in the original, it might have worked a lot better. Also, despite coming from music originally, I never escaped the sense that Smith didn’t have the vocal range to overpower the orchestrations. On second thought, I’m not giving them a pass on Smith. I don’t think I can give the entire film a pass.

Aladdin (1992)

Director: Ron Clements, John Musker

Cast: Robin Williams, Scott Weinger, Linda Larkin, Gilbert Gottfried

Have I Seen it Before: As a child of the 90s, even if I hadn’t specifically sat down with the intention of watching it at any point, I would have absorbed all of its 90 minutes through sheer osmosis over the years.

Did I Like It: Coming off the heels of The Little Mermaid (1989), the animated Disney renaissance was in full swing by the time Robin Williams entered the recording studio. I wonder if this would have ultimately been a competent if unremarkable music if the film didn’t completely shift tones about halfway through and becomes another stand-up special for Williams. The plot zips through its obligatory Disney tropes to let Williams just bubble forth with words that may not fit in the film but are singular to its success.

How Disney could have soured its relationship with Williams and not made the Genie the new crown jewel of its empire in the 90s is an early example of the mismanagement that became the legacy of Michael Eisner’s tenure with the company. I’d say that the decision to produce a live-action remake with Will Smith in the role of the genie was a sign that the company has lost its mind now, but it made a boatload of money, so what do I know?

The filmmakers made an attempt to use the at that point still embryonic CGI technology to assist in some of the fluid motion in certain shots. At the time, they must have seemed new and exciting, but with nearly thirty years and approaching infinite number of exclusively CGI films since, the seams show, and it ages poorly. It’s a nitpicky thing to fixate on, sure, but when a film captures that old Disney magic, it’s hard to notice anything that doesn’t particularly work.

Now if they did go ahead and remake the film, one wonders if the magic would hold up. One wonders.

Moana (2016)

Director: Ron Clements, John Musker

Cast: Auli’I Cravalho, Dwayne Johnson, Rachel House, Temuera Morrison

Have I Seen It Before?: No.

Did I like it?: Yes.

After the acquisition of Pixar by Disney, and the pollination of creative executives into Disney Animation, the Mouse House has lifted itself out of its slump and produced insanely watchable movies, whereas before they were content to churn out direct-to-video sequels and make just enough money to make sure the shareholders stay happy.

Moana happily fits in this Disney renaissance. The script is perfectly crafted, to the point where it could legitimately be used in examples for books about writing screenplays. The setting is new and interesting. I cannot think of any film that immerses itself in Polynesian culture and mythology like we see here. The cast is both filled and headlined with performers representative of the cultures depicted.

And yet, something about the movie bothers me. It feels like such a story should not only include representation in front of the camera, but also behind. This story should have come out of the cultural marrow of someone from that culture. Pixar isn’t necessarily blind to this, as their recent short Bao (2018) brilliantly showed. Am I to truly believe the three people best qualified to both write and direct the tale of Maui (Johnson) and Moana (Cravalho) are three white guys from Burbank who had sufficient seniority in the Walt Disney Corporation.

By all indications, the writing of the film went through several hands before it reached its final version, credited to Disney in-house writer Jared Bush. At one point, even Taika Waititi took a pass at it that was apparently largely abandoned. It’s heartening that the film credited a large team of cultural advisors, but one of them didn’t have a burning story to tell on their own? It’s a fine film. The music keeps occasionally running its way through my head, even as I type this a few days after first watching the film.

I just can’t help think that there was an even better film somewhere in there, and the corporate realities of modern film-making robbed us of something that could have been not just special, but transcendent.

Why in the hell wouldn’t they go with a script originally written by Taika Waititi? Why?

Ralph Breaks The Internet (2018)

Director: Rich Moore, Phil Johnston

Cast: John C. Reilly, Sarah Silverman, Gal Gadot, Taraji P. Henson

Have I Seen it Before: It definitely represents a trend in animated sequels, but no, I missed it in the theaters.

Did I Like It: Look…

There’s nothing inherently wrong with the sequel to Wreck it Ralph (2012). The humor is on-point, if—at times—a little like grabbing for low-hanging fruit when it comes to the mercurial nature of the internet. The action set pieces and other animation are clever, as are the sequences involving the bevy of Disney Princesses…

And that might be part of the problem. Far be it for me to drag someone for thinking too much and feeling too little in the context of a story, but I think lthe problem here is that the original had such a perfectly constructed emotional through-line for its main character. In the original film, Ralph (Reilly) must come to accept who he is if he is to ever hope to be the person—and have the life—he wants.

That’s powerful stuff for any movie, much less one aimed at children that—when you scratch away enough layers—is ultimately an exercise in advanced brand synergy. Here, the closest we get to an emotional arc is the need for Ralph to be a more supportive friend. It’s along the same lines of what happened in The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part (2019), where the incisive deconstruction of the nature of creativity is sidelined by a message for kids to be nicer to their siblings. It’s a fine ideal, and I suppose it may be unfair for every movie in a franchise to try to re-wrinkle my brain, but I can’t not remark on the fact that—while not embarrassing and still quite entertaining—things just aren’t the same any more.

However, if the film’s loftier ideas can somehow be incepted into a generation of children through an otherwise entertaining picture, then that might actually have a positive impact on human society, so who am I to really judge? Maybe it’s far better than I’m giving it credit.

Toy Story 4 (2019)

Director: Josh Cooley

Cast: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Annie Potts, Tony Hale

Have I Seen it Before: Never. Honestly wasn’t even sure I wanted to see it. I mean, the story ended with Toy Story 3 (2010), right?

Did I Like It: I’m absolutely baffled by the realization that—without this story—the story of Sheriff Woody (Hanks) would be tragically incomplete.

I’ll do you one better than that and issue an even more bold statement about this movie:

Woody’s odyssey is the single greatest Buddhist story since Groundhog Day (1993). Think about it. Really, the Toy Story series up until this point is about being locked in a cycle of suffering. Woody and company are in danger of becoming lost. Through their own cleverness, and by defeating some kind of dark heavy (in the guise of Sid, Stinky Pete, or Lotso) are once again back in the arms of a kid, and once again left to contemplate their inevitable planned obsolescence.

It’s always thrilling and more often than not heart-warming, but it is inevitably destined to repeat itself. Even the transfer from Andy to Bonnie that got the characters a new lease on life only begins the cycle again.

It is only when Woody is able to let go of his attachments that he is able to find any sort of evergreen peace and happiness. He even let’s Buzz take the lead role with Bonnie nee Andy’s toys, a prospect that drove Woody to attempted murder in years past. It’s a profound emotional journey that would be impressive in any film, much less the fourth entry in a franchise twenty-five years old. And it is the men this time that are afforded what might have in a previous era been the more feminine emotional (or at least more sensitive) journey. Even Buzz (Allen) who gets comparatively little to do is trying to find his inner voice, paying some comedic dividends. It’s the women who are the action heroes. Even the supposed heavy in Gabby Gabby (Christina Hendricks) isn’t thoroughly a villain and gets to enjoy the fruits of a world that was never really a zero sum game.

Instead of being an afterthought, this (now we can all say final, right?) entry in the series is perhaps the most thought-provoking animated film I’ve ever seen.

Although I’m a little miffed that my super-duper special complete toy-box blu ray collection of the first three films is going to have to find someway to get along with a copy of this movie on my shelf. A minor complaint.